sunset from behind the wire

Friday, September 30, 2016

I'm dealing with this and that and will be on walkabout for a bit. Read the sidebar bloggers, if you are so inclined. Their stuff is almost always better than mine anyway.

I may put something up during the next week or ten days. The tasks at hand are all routine but they are all time consuming.

Want Ad:

I'm still looking for a restoration project: A Dodge Powerwagon in the 1945-54 range. Earlier is better. If you run onto one, let me know. Brig did find one but he didn't want to sell. (Fredd, I could put a snow plow on that and do a decent job) I want a fixer upper, not a fixed up. And I don't plan to make it a show truck - more of a mountain/ranch truck.

With escrow closed on the principle parcel in AZ, I'm going to ease into that development program as I'm able and it will begin to occupy my time, so I'm not rushing to take on the restoration job. But if you hear of something or see something that I should look into, let me know.

What I WON'T be doing on walkabout:

There are big things going on in the world and in the land of the millennials, nothing is more profound than the continuing grief over Harambe, the gorilla, shot down in the prime of life.

The memes continue. Afro-American youth are displaying their genitalia in the "Dicks out for Harambe" movement. It's powerful stuff. However I will not involve myself in that.

And I have no plans to shoot gorillas or guerrillas in my absence from the liberal/prog paradise that is SoCal.

I will not be wearing the "everyday pantsuit T-shirt" offered on the Hillary website. It's for emasculated males. (read more here)

I have no idea what I'd wear if I was a sodomite, but I can't even see a self-respecting sodomite wearing this.

If a male had worn something like that in the neighborhood when I was a kid, he'd have been beat up and his lunch money would have been stolen. It's an abomination.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

During the recent debate some inner voice made me want to step through the television and onto the debate stage and ask Hillary Clinton (a lawyer) to tell me about Terry v Ohio when she said that stop and frisk was unconstitutional, backed up by Holt, who is now revealed as just another of Hillary's flying monkeys. Mayor Guiliani responded to the Bitch of Benghazi today in the WSJ. But the bell was rung at the debate with the standard bogus fact checking by a shill for Clinton. It's what we've come to expect from the mainstream media during debates.

It makes me wonder how Anderson Cooper, a homosexual, will treat Trump in the next debate, given that Hillary is so heavily pro-Muslim. They would execute Cooper if he showed up in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen or any other serious Islamic state, for being a Sodomite.

(Wall St. Journal) One of the strategies that helped bring about an 85% reduction in crime in New York City between 1994 and 2013 was the careful and appropriate use of “stop and frisk.” This practice dramatically reduced the number of guns, knives and other dangerous weapons, as well as illicit drugs, in the city.

But according to candidate Hillary Clinton and moderator Lester Holt during Monday night’s presidential debate, stop and frisk is “unconstitutional.” They are wrong. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, it’s the usual misrepresenting she does when she does not know what she is talking about. As for Mr. Holt, if a moderator is going to interfere, he should do some homework and not pretend to know the law when he does not. Mr. Holt and NBC cannot overrule the U.S. Supreme Court.

That last bit was news to me. NBC/MSNBC overrules the US Supreme Court all of the time and gets away with it. You can read the whole article (cited above), continuing...

During the debate, Donald Trump described the history of the case correctly. He said that after the judge decided the case, the city appealed and asked for a stay of the lower court’s decision. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a scathing opinion, criticized Judge Scheindlin for improperly steering the case to her courtroom. It issued an unusual stay to allow the Bloomberg-Kelly form of stop and frisk to go forward until the court could decide the appeal. And in a rare action, it removed Judge Scheindlin from the case.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision underscores Mr. Trump’s position that stop and frisk is constitutional and plays a critical role in saving lives. The Court of Appeals issues a stay or injunction only if there is a likelihood of success on the merits for the appeal and the lower-court ruling will create irreparable damage. The likelihood of success means the court believes there’s a good chance that the judge’s ruling of unconstitutional as applied was going to be reversed. And irreparable damage means that the court came to the same conclusion as Mr. Trump, that stop and frisk plays a critical role in reducing crime.

THE FAT VENEZUELAN LADY

(Fox News) There is an interesting aspect of this story, which blew up after Hillary Clinton very deliberately mentioned Machado at the end of the presidential debate on Monday. As it turns out, sympathetic mainstream media outlets had been working on profiles of Machado since last week, causing some to wonder if the press was coordinating all along with the Clinton campaign.

Let's take the time machine back and see what CNN said about Ms. Machado:

I wonder if Lester Holt and Hillary Clinton will apologize for LYING in the debate? Yeah. When pigs fly.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The war on the weather has taken more dramatic moves this week as Barack has ordered that the CIA's international focus give precedence to the weather. It's a real head-scratcher, folks. Hopefully by November 9th, that sort of foolishness will be relegated to the back-burner.

I can't help but think that the long monsoon that Texas has gone through this summer (as a result of LSP's congregation of farmers praying for rain), must have something to do with it.

(Scientific American) President Obama moved toward solidifying his climate change legacy this week by requiring federal defense and intelligence agencies to consider the effects of a warming planet on national security in the policies, plans and doctrines they develop.

The executive order, issued yesterday, comes in the form of a presidential memorandum requiring 20 federal agencies to collaborate to make sure decisionmakers have the best available information on climate change impacts and their potential threats to national security (E&ENews PM, Sept. 21). The agencies are as varied as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which gather scientific observations on climate, and the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense, which analyze intelligence and develop national security policy.

The FBI is exempt from those orders, apparently, because they have their hands full cleaning up after Hillary Clinton, which is akin to a toxic spill all on its own.

I had dinner with friends last night who asked me if I had anything good to say about Barack. I couldn't find a single thing.

Thoughts on Syria and the Middle East

The situation in the Middle East is very complicated, made more so by the number of major players (the Russians, Turks and Americans) all of which have their own agendas. The locals, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel have their agendas as well and as one would expect, NONE of those agendas match.

A Clinton presidency would be the same as the Obama presidency - years of bleak, muddled thinking. A Trump presidency would have a different mandate from voters - but the form that will take in terms of real political change in the Middle East eludes me (I confess). The Obama Years have broken the machine and I don't know that even an energetic Trump Administration working non-stop for four years can repair the damage of the Obama regime.

Iranian President Rouhani said on 27 September that Iran would continue to back Syria in its fight against “terrorism” and in establishing security in the region. Last week, on the 22d, Major General Safavi of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said that Russian airstrikes against Aleppo were based on information provided by IRGC advisors, Lebanese Hizballah and the Syrian Arab Army.

Lebanese Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah commented that there was no possible political solution for Syria as the conflict was getting more complicated in the aftermath of the collapse of the US-Russian ceasefire agreement.

News services reported that Syrian ground forces launched multiple local offensives against Syrian rebel-held enclaves in Aleppo. The main action, however, was the bombing campaign.

As has become customary, President Rouhani put the context for Iranian support for Syria in its largest regional setting. Iran sees itself as acting as the guardian of regional security.

General Safavi is the military advisor and aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. He speaks with the authority of the Supreme Leader. His comment is the first recent update on the information exchange among the supporters of the Syrian government.

The Russians announced last year that they intended to establish an intelligence exchange mechanism with Iran. Safavi confirmed that it is operational and effective, but hinted at a closer relationship than actually is known to exist.

Nasrallah’s statements are almost always insightful as well as blunt. His message is twofold. First, the situation is too complicated to consider all the variables and to accommodate all the players in a ceasefire agreement. His statement implies that no political solution is reachable until the situation simplifies. That judgment begets his second point: that there is only a military solution.

Comments: Putting US troops into this sewer makes no sense to me. We will lose more good young men and in the end will have nothing to show for it. I've seen a lot of small wars in my time, and a few big wars. And I ask myself, what all of that blood and treasure, dumped into places like Syria and Iraq have accomplished. I end up with the depressing sum of "next to nothing".

I've been working on details for the hovel at the White Wolf Mine lately. Escrow (finally) closes on the land today. Current plans call for a 3600 square foot structure (garage included) in the heavy ponderosa pines, with a road that snakes down from the main road that runs the ridge line, to the compound.

Working out grades and so forth leaves me a bit concerned about churning my way out of the place with snow/ice. I can do it with 4WD and tire chains, but the objective is not to tear the road to pieces every winter and leave massive ruts. And it's annoying to chain-up/chain-down when I want to leave the facility. There are options such as placing railroad ties seated in concrete supports with rebar pushing down through the concrete into bedrock below, to keep the roadway from rutting. The railroad ties can be bedded every few feet. It's a take-off from the old tried and true "corduroy road" of tree trunks of yore. Or I can do military style metal runway sheets (which are slick as greased owl shit in the snow/ice) It may not be necessary to do that. I don't have all of the engineering worked out that closely.

The property is almost all bedrock with some soil on it - and lots of tall trees. As of this writing, I don't know whether or not I'll have to blast rock to cut out the basement. My sense is that I won't have to simply because of topography where I am going to site the shack.

Other structures such as a look-out tower (recommended by LSP), and so forth will have to come later if they come at all. I have a feeling that the grandkids will demand a treehouse if I don't have a tower constructed. Finding the right grouping of trees (possibly augmented by well-disguised structural steel) is something that I have on my list.

To wit: There is rimrock that runs along the length of the lower property and there are pines above that which would give a treehouse a proper perch. I could use it as a hide for taking photos when no grandchildren are running around because there is a game trail that runs along the base of the rimrock. There are tricks to keeping game in the area like putting in a watering trough and salt lick in the right place and kicking out hay in the winter for the elk (which love hay, unlike deer which are more picky).

I am using a different surveyor for the topographic survey than the one that I used for the meets and bounds survey that is complete. The topo survey (grade every 2') includes significant rock outcrops, pines over 8" in circumference, etc. The location for the hovel is evident by topography and the placement of trees by nature. The specifics are more involved. The devil is in the details and in getting them right the very first time.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

I watched the debate and will offer my take on the outcome, offering unwanted advice to Trump, who does not read my blog. Though he should.

Megyn Kelly - GQ Photo Shoot

I told LSP that I wouldn't watch Megyn Kelly's analysis unless she did it nude. How's that for sexism? Megyn annoys me. And she really doesn't like Trump...however if she was commenting while nude, I have to confess that I'd tune in precisely because I am a heterosexual male. I predict that her ratings would improve until everyone got used to seeing her in the buff, then they'd drop off.

But I digress.

Trump didn't lose the debate and Hillary, who was on her 9th Presidential Debate didn't succeed in making him look bad. Hillary smirked, and the wild eye began to twitch as Trump laid into her early in the debate. Then Trump backed off. Trump got the point across that Hillary and friends have failed to do anything about ISIS since they created it; Their trade deals hurt America; They have made a mockery of the 'inner city voter'; and she was a failure at everything she did while working for government over the past thirty years.

Trump could have gotten tougher on the e-mail scandal, on the energy program where Hillary wanted to put miners out of work, and shouldn't have worked so hard to justify his actions. Hillary started the birther movement, he followed up, and eventually Obama produced a birth certificate. Who cares. The tit for tat: Tax Returns for Hillary's 33,000 emails being released shut Hillary up. She moved on.

The now Infamous Trump Tax Returns are a red herring that he's holding back. Let the media go insane over them. At about 3 weeks out, he'll release them and there will be -- nothing worth attacking. He'll use it when Hillary triumphs in some way to dull her surge. And you know that the media will tumble for it.

A draw would have been a Trump victory.

The debate was roughly a draw and that means that Trump won.

Unlike many of you, I thought that the moderator, Lester Holt, an NBC Anchor, exceeded my expectations. I didn't expect him to be fair, and he wasn't in a subjective sense, but he was more fair than I thought that he would be. Does that make sense? Rachel Maddow would have been worse as would have Kieth Olbermann. The mainstream media always favors the Democrat and had he not done that to some degree, he might have been in a bread line D-Day+1.

Monday, September 26, 2016

The tragic death of Harambe, the monkey in the Cincinnati Zoo was not mentioned in the first presidential debate between Clinton and Trump, but that doesn't mean that they forgot him. Or does it?

(National Review) Clemson University Bans ‘Any Reference to Harambe’ From Dorm Spaces Because of ‘Rape Culture’ and ‘Racism’

A Clemson University administrator has demanded that any and all references to Harambe be removed from the public spaces in its dormitories because of concerns about “rape culture” and “racism.”

“Due to an incident that happened earlier this week, we are no longer allowing any reference to Harambe (or any other spelling) to be displayed on doors, halls, billboards, or windows,” an administrator stated in an e-mail to resident assistants, a screenshot of which was leaked to Campus Reform. “Essentially, Harambe should not be displayed in a public place or a place that is viewed by the public.”

“If residents are asking why they have to take them down you can share that there was a report from an individual about a meme being offensive and bias [sic] in nature and as a result all Harambe references are no longer allowed within our community.”

In an e-mail responding to a student’s question about the policy that obtained by Campus Reform, Graduate Community Director Brooks Artis explained that “there have been reports that he and the incident surrounding his death have been used to add to the rape culture as well as being a form of racism.”

I don't know how a reference to a long dead gorilla promotes a rape culture. Maybe the readership could/would be so polite as to enlighten me.

The phrase "Dicks out for Harambe" was one that I was unfamiliar with. I had to look it up on the Urban Dictionary -

"The act of pulling your dick out of your pants as a sign of respect for our nigga Harambe

"Show some respect you insensitive fuck; dicks out for Harambe."

So if I get this right, Afro-American males have been pulling their dicks from their trousers as a sign of love for a fallen brother? Somehow that makes perfect sense to me...what's wrong with me?

A giant asteroid impact in the dwarf planet's past offers new insights into the possibility of an ocean beneath its surface.

Old NFO and other Sci-Fi writers take note. There is grist for stories set on Pluto as the science fact is disclosed.

Ever since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid water ocean beneath its icy shell. Now, by modeling the impact dynamics that created a massive crater on Pluto's surface, a team of researchers has made a new estimate of how thick that liquid layer might be.

The study, led by Brown University geologist Brandon Johnson and published in Geophysical Research Letters, finds a high likelihood that there's more than 100 kilometers of liquid water beneath Pluto's surface. The research also offers a clue about the composition of that ocean, suggesting that it likely has a salt content similar to that of the Dead Sea.

The research focused on Sputnik Planum, a basin 900 kilometers across that makes up the western lobe the famous heart-shaped feature revealed during the New Horizons flyby. The basin appears to have been created by an impact, likely by an object 200 kilometers across or larger.

The story of how the basin relates to Pluto's putative ocean starts with its position on the planet relative to Pluto's largest moon, Charon. Pluto and Charon are tidally locked with each other, meaning they always show each other the same face as they rotate. Sputnik Planum sits directly on the tidal axis linking the two worlds. That position suggests that the basin has what's called a positive mass anomaly -- it has more mass than average for Pluto's icy crust. As Charon's gravity pulls on Pluto, it would pull proportionally more on areas of higher mass, which would tilt the planet until Sputnik Planum became aligned with the tidal axis.

A positive mass anomaly would make Sputnik Planum a bit of an odd duck as craters go. "An impact crater is basically a hole in the ground," Johnson said. "You're taking a bunch of material and blasting it out, so you expect it to have negative mass anomaly, but that's not what we see with Sputnik Planum. That got people thinking about how you could get this positive mass anomaly."

Part of the answer is that, after it formed, the basin has been partially filled in by nitrogen ice. That ice layer adds some mass to the basin, but it isn't thick enough on its own to make Sputnik Planum have positive mass, Johnson says.

The rest of that mass may be generated by a liquid lurking beneath the surface.

Relative sizes of Earth, the Moon and Pluto

Like a bowling ball dropped on a trampoline, a large impact creates a dent on a planet's surface, followed by a rebound. That rebound pulls material upward from deep in the planet's interior. If that upwelled material is denser than what was blasted away by the impact, the crater ends up with the same mass as it had before the impact happened. This is a phenomenon geologists refer to as isostatic compensation.

Water is denser than ice. So if there were a layer of liquid water beneath Pluto's ice shell, it may have welled up following the Sputnik Planum impact, evening out the crater's mass. If the basin started out with neutral mass, then the nitrogen layer deposited later would be enough to create a positive mass anomaly.

"This scenario requires a liquid ocean," Johnson said. "We wanted to run computer models of the impact to see if this is something that would actually happen. What we found is that the production of a positive mass anomaly is actually quite sensitive to how thick the ocean layer is. It's also sensitive to how salty the ocean is, because the salt content affects the density of the water."

The models simulated the impact of an object large enough to create a basin of Sputnik Planum's size hitting Pluto at a speed expected for that part in the solar system. The simulation assumed various thicknesses of the water layer beneath the crust, from no water at all to a layer 200 kilometers thick.

The scenario that best reconstructed Sputnik Planum's observed size depth, while also producing a crater with compensated mass, was one in which Pluto has an ocean layer more than 100 kilometers thick, with a salinity of around 30 percent.

"What this tells us is that if Sputnik Planum is indeed a positive mass anomaly -- and it appears as though it is -- this ocean layer of at least 100 kilometers has to be there," Johnson said. "It's pretty amazing to me that you have this body so far out in the solar system that still may have liquid water."

As the US approaches the heralded, much discussed, and anticipated debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton this evening, other things are going on which are more subtle and at the same time are not so subtle. I'll leave the debate and the countdown to November 8 for another day. With luck, Trump wins and the actors in Hollywood will be good to their word and move to Mexico. They failed to keep their promises when George W. Bush won twice, so my hopes are tempered by the disappointment predicted by historical reality.

On to my polemic discussion. And since it's Sunday night that I write this, it is clearly a sermonette. It may not be as eloquent as one you'd get at LSP's church, but I make do as best I can.

The Pope

There are a number of Catholic bloggers who drift by Virtual Mirage from time to time. I wish no offense to them.

There have been good popes in the past. John Paul 2 comes to mind. There have also been some bad actors such as the Borgias, who left a stain on history. Pope Francis has been a disappointment at this hour of history when the lamps of the faith are being extinguished one by one. Our nation is diseased with the open corruption of venal secularists and their perversions combining with heretical and apostate Muslims to form a single and insanely violent death cult bent on the destruction of the West.

Barack engaging in cultural
misappropriation by wearing
a cowboy hat.

Every day there is a news report from a shopping mall shooting or stabbing or a bomb being detonated by one of the Mohammedans. The victims are inevitably unarmed and are going about their business in peace when they are killed. The Pope calls for tolerance. My view is that safety "trumps" tolerance. You may not agree.

When you hear what Pope Francis says about Islam, about the right of a country to have and defend its borders, etc., it sounds like he's reading out of the Obama playbook. Which either means that Barack is a God-inspired national leader or that Pope Francis is a flawed religious leader. I tend to believe the latter.

Canoe Rack

I realize that the shift in topic from the Pope of Rome's views to that of which canoe rack is better requires some explanation.

There are literally hundreds of different styles of canoe for sale in America with different construction materials, different paddling philosophies, etc. involved. I have my opinions, and you may or may not have an opinion.

The first problem for me was deciding how to get my canoe from my suburban home to the (1) Ocean, (2) Rivers and (3) Lakes. I have two vehicles capable of easily transporting the canoe or kayak. Of the two, the Toyota FJ makes more sense because the short wheel base, heavily trail-armored, 4x4 vehicle can go where the Ford Raptor pick-up truck can not. Being able to haul the canoe to remote mountain lakes is critical to the stated mission.

I put washers above/below the rack when
I'm going to use it - I know that at least one
of you will nit-pick that. Now it's explained.

Having found that every canoe/kayak rack on the market being sold either on-line or at famous sporting goods conglomerates were inadequate to the task, I set about designing my own. I wanted something that I could slip on and pull off the rig within roughly a minute - or less. It had to be incredibly strong and to have the capacity of doubling as a rack for other applications as the occasion arose.

If you can't buy it, build it.

I decided on 100% steel construction with cast billet aluminum attachments to the roof rack of the FJ.

Materials:

(1) 4 X FORTREKS Hi-Lift Jack mounts, repurposed to my need. (cost: $109 - I already had two in inventory and needed another two, so it's technically an additional $109)

From there it was a simple matter to cut the steel bar into segments and bend them to suit. From there, I cut the DOM into unequal pieces because the rack on the FJ is not uniform in dimension from front to back. Notching the DOM, I put the strapping into place and welded it. Then I took it to a local powder coating company and called in a favor. They charged me $30 for both pieces and I felt that was an adequate deal. So I have a canoe rack for roughly $200 that will carry virtually any size or weight canoe (that would fit on the top of the rig). I have not yet put neoprene onto the racks to cushion the canoe once it's in place. That's coming.

The racks that you can buy at the various outlets are inevitably made in China and are constructed of plastic and pot metal that will bend or break in a strong wind. This one is VERY simple, can be installed and removed from the rig in well under a minute and is simple. Ratchet straps hold the canoe in place once it's loaded on the rig.

Barack would say that I didn't build it, but I did. A stopped clock is correct far more often than Barack or his buddies are.

The Round-About Lesson

We all have to chart our own courses in life. If you want to follow Barack-the-Magic-Socialist, or the Pope, or the shrewish crone, Hillary Clinton, that's up to you. I've never been good at following a well-trod path or swallowing lies. More often than not I end up building it myself to suit or repurposing if it comes to that. I earned the money that bought the components of the roof rack addition. I constructed it by the sweat of my brow, relying on others to help at times with the powder coat, which I paid for or the loan of a welding rig, for which I owe a favor. However, I'm responsible for the contraption's success or failure. It's all on me. I prefer it when things go down that way.

The presidential debates are much the same thing. One person is abundantly happy with the corrupt system which feeds her billions of dollars each year in graft. The other wants to turn the country around and Make America Great Again. But no matter who wins the debate and rules for the next four years, I have a plan to make them less important in my life.

If we as a nation, as a people, each agreed to carry our own water, most of the problems that we have would be solved automatically without some bureaucrat needing to mandate this or that BS. There are TONS of laws on the books. Many of the more valuable laws are not enforced because of executive prerogative and agenda. At the same time Congress passes more and more laws.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

The only thing that Blacklivesmatter (BLM) has accomplished (beyond facilitating looting) is to boost the stereotypes that we all have of ghetto people.

Some of the BLM activists are calling for no police in predominantly negro neighborhoods. I have no problem with that at all if the government also withdraws welfare and other benefits/entitlements except for military pensions, in the ghettos. Without police protection businesses would leave and insurance premiums would skyrocket, but I frankly do not care...I don't give a rat's ass.

It's not just me. The country is tired of their whiney BS, sick of the lawlessness, the riots and the threats and demands.

My message to BLM:Segregate yourselves from the rest of us and the police won't respond. Drag the carcasses to the border so that a meat wagon can pick them up each morning and take them to the incinerator. If you leave the ghetto to prey on others, the police will shoot you. (open season, no bag limit)

I attended a soccer game on Saturday morning where my granddaughter (who lives with me), Alyssa. scored a couple of solid goals. She's in action there (below right) as a proud member of the Sea Turtles girls soccer team.

I live in SoCal, which means that the population is racially and culturally diverse. For the greater part, everyone gets along remarkably well. Even the Muslims usually leave well enough alone.

After the game, I went to a greasy spoon off State Route 91 that I eat at from time to time because the breakfasts are good. When I went through the door there was an Afro-American,wearing a Mohammedan 'costume/outfit' screaming at the Mexican lady behind the counter. I quietly slipped the Kimber from its holster and dropped it to my side, and slipped off the thumb safety.

Notes: (1) The grandkids had gone straight home with my daughter and her husband, so were not there.(2) Round in battery, Hornady .45 ACP +P/185 gr FTX bullet. https://youtu.be/IetLk5qS88w

I listened. The substance of his rant, laced with ghetto profanity, was that he wanted a "halal" breakfast and they needed to stop cooking bacon and sausage, clean up, scrub the grill and make it for him.

The mood of those eating was hostile toward the Afro-American Muslim. Of those present having breakfast, there were blacks, Mexicans, white folks - working class, and I'm guessing from their reaction that they were almost all "despicable". The Afro-American focused his anger on the Mexican lady behind the counter and didn't see the men behind him, most of whom were standing now, waiting to pounce like lions on a gazelle, and explain the concept of 'frontier justice'.

I asked one of the Mexican cooks, who'd left the kitchen and was standing by, next to me, holding a butcher knife, if he had called the police. He said that they had. The police arrived seconds later and I discretely re-holstered. The senior officer of those who responded was my son-in-law.

He asked, "What's going on, dad?"

"415 Muslim 5150. Wants them to cook him a special meal."

The Muslim left in the back of a police car. (charged with CPC 422, Terrorist Threats, CPC 415, Disturbing the Peace, etc.) He was not armed. Just nuts. But it could have ended very differently. Better to be prepared and trained than unprepared and untrained. I have no idea how many of these sorts of incidents happen in the USA every single day, unheralded. I'm guessing that there are quite a few. It's the first time that it's happened with me as a witness.

S-I-L requested C-7. I bought. He and I ordered (bacon, eggs, toast, hash-browns) sat down and had breakfast. We got extra bacon on the plates without having to ask for it. The breakfast discussion centered on human lice and the benefits of retroactive birth control.

The greasy spoon is at least six or seven miles from the Mosque-Next-Door that is located near my house.It takes considerable balls to walk into a place and do that. I wonder what the reaction would be if I brought a pound of bacon to one of their restaurants and demand that it be cooked to my satisfaction. Likely the same reaction that the greasy spoon owners and (despicable) patrons had. But nobody takes bacon to a Muslim restaurant and demands that it be cooked. That's the difference - and the problem.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

It's Saturday, some of the world isn't working and that would include me as well. So I'm musing about this and that.

Finding a New Career

We all know that it takes neither brains or talent to be the US President, but what about the British Prime Minister? On Juliette's Blog, I read (her account) of Sir Winston Churchill walking out into the garden, standing there with the snake deployed and pissing on the roses while the maid gazed on. It made me think that if I developed that talent (which Barack may not have since he pees sitting down) that I could be a great politician.

If I had a seizure, fell and hit my head, maybe I too couldn't remember anything, and I could be the Democratic Party's contender -- and I could lie to the FBI without recourse. Who says that fits can't be profitable? I need to learn to foam at the mouth and do the chicken if I want to succeed.

Nuptial Bliss and Warming a Chair

He was shot in the back of his
head. You can see the bullet
coming out of his forehead.NOT the groom...

Friends invited me to their daughter's wedding in downtown Santa Ana last night. The "wedding chapel" was a converted warehouse in an area where industrial meets the ghetto, not far from the courthouse where I used to work. Friday afternoon traffic in that part of California is something to behold. Manhattan, Mexico City, Athens, Beijing and London are not worse. I've done them all.

You may ask yourself how good of friends they were to invite me to fill a chair. I'm beginning to wonder. The bride, a former lesbian, was turned straight by a Chinese guy whose parents don't like the parents of the bride, so that was all fun to watch. It was not an open bar, but the small plastic cup of fountain Diet Coke was fifty cents...yes, that kind of wedding.

The food was served in two stations. Fish head soup and noodles on one side and sliders with french fries on the other.

The minister was a few bricks short, inappropriate and did everything except slap on an emergency clown nose. I found out from his monolog that he's the preacher at a local rescue mission. Then it made sense.

After a slice of dried out cake, and some clapping at the first dance, the this and the that, I slithered out through a side door to battle traffic home. The friends came to my daughters weddings and I had to reciprocate. I brought a cash gift to pay them back for the re-gifted toasters and crock pots that they gave my kids.

And the residents of the greater Charlotte Mecklenburg area are taking Gates' advice and enriching themselves at the expense of the local merchants -- and leaving a Molotov Cocktail on their way out the door. Somehow, I don't think that's what Gates was talking about.

Grandkids

It's fall, and all of my grandchildren play sports. Attending those games is always enjoyable. I shout, encourage, and am the perfect grandfather. I excoriate the competition and excuse their occasional fumbles and stumbles.

There are T-Ball, soccer and flag football games to attend and all of that is very important.

At the end of the game, there is the inevitable visit to the snack bar where grandpa buys (no Skittles anymore), a hot dog, etc for the kids. Because that's what grandpas do. There is a picnic of sorts as the kids eat their hot dogs and juice box. Then a return to the snack bar for an ice cream cone before handing them off to Mom and Dad. Sometimes there is chocolate for the road (to torture Mom and Dad).

The big ramp-up to Halloween is underway and my two granddaughters who live with me are no exception. Savannah walked into my den the modeled her new princess dress and wand (right), giving you a glimpse of both my sweet granddaughter and the interior of the Bat Cave.

The granddaughters will be both be princesses and the grandsons will be various super heroes and mutant ninja turtles, which are heroes to reptiles worldwide.

The annual candy harvest is something that is looked forward as being only a stepping stone away from Christmas (the big haul).

The Libertarian Option

Gary Johnson is a fool.

Yes, you never Trump people...rally around Gary Johnson. He's a doofus. (see "Finding a New Career" at the top of the page) A Clinton administration would be like a pig rodeo, but Johnson. Really?

There are some good people in Congress who I think would have made credible candidates for the US Presidency, but they were either honest (and didn't have the backing of the corrupt machine or Wall Street like Ted Cruz), or lacked general support. There was Jeb! the dynastic candidate who nobody wanted - and according to Fallon, is driving an Uber to make ends meet these days.

Clinton should be in prison, Johnson should be managing a fast food restaurant. Stein is a good comrade and crusader/community organizer in addition to work as a medical doctor with a coat hanger in one pocket and a stethoscope around her neck.

At least Donald Trump has his heart in the right place, backs the Second Amendment, and has met a payroll and knows what it's like to have the government boot on his neck. He's the only option and all he wants is that America be great again.

The progs (led by the old, fat, crone) are howling that white people are deplorable and now "unbearable". Ghetto blacks are burning their neighborhoods in NC and OK because a black officer shot a black thug. Other blacks are coming from hundreds of miles away to loot because there are no consequences to theft and mayhem. Muslims are setting bombs in New York City. The economy is in the tank with another 1% growth, at best, in 2016 predicted. Unemployment is dismal unless you look at the Department of Labor's statistics, which are bent, and then things look fine. And Barack is happy with all of that.

Futility

There is a futility that comes with blogging about Muslim attacks on innocent people who are unable to defend themselves in support of their "peaceful faith". They come often. Every time a bomb is set off or a guy in a truck runs down hundreds of people celebrating independence or some whack job screaming Allah Akbar runs through a shopping mall hacking up people with a meat cleaver, we hear the story without the accompanying narrative that, "it's another Muslim doing what Muslims are prone to do." Political leaders like Barack and Hillary lash out at people who "are quick to judge", but inevitably, it's another Muslim.

The balance of trying to keep a country where freedom of religion is intact and managing the Islamic threat (yes, 26% of Muslims in America age 15-30 who were surveyed, felt that suicide bombing Americans was the right thing to do) is challenging.

The Muslim terrorists in the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Miami Nightclub Slaughter and this most recent attack in New York and New Jersey underscore that the subjects were known to law enforcement. In this most recent attack, the "lone wolf" (not really but that's how the media paints him) was denounced to the FBI as a radical Jihadist bent on conducting a terror attack. And yet, the scrutiny that these freaks deserved wasn't present. The JTTF's aren't just the FBI, they include a wide range of law enforcement people.

Sitting back and watching all this be reenacted over and over again is frustrating.

Black Lies Matter

Yes, it's the same and not the same. The scenario runs like this: A police encounter with a an armed individual or with an unarmed but dangerous individual ends in the officer ending the suspect's life. Sometimes the officer is white, sometimes another race, but that's never an issue. Within minutes, riot organizers are working the community to get the social justice narrative moving. They are aided by CNN (the Clinton News Network) and others in getting black people into the street to loot. The looting is tolerated by police because they are black.

It might backfire on the media, which is largely not trusted in America. It becomes just another dog-bites-man story that nobody cares about beyond the police who need to put down the riot and the social justice warriors who PROFIT from the riot. Eventually you'll see the ratings dip because it's just another bunch of ignorant savages doing what they do...?

Lawlessness

The rule of law is the glue that binds the nation. This year we've seen that flaunted by the person running to lead the nation, and tolerated by the media who shields her. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way. Many people see that and it's why Donald Trump won the Republican nomination -- and why he is now tied or better to be president, though the election of Trump is not a foregone conclusion.

The language that the North Koreans use is always entertaining. It could be a skit on Saturday Night Live or some other comedy show, but the Norks take themselves very seriously. It's a pity that nobody else feels the same way about them...the mouse that roared.

A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) issued a statement on 22 September, which the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published. They're upset because the US keeps flying B-1B's over North Korean territory. The statement said that:

"The US imperialists and the south Korean puppet war mongers’ anti-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) military provocations have pushed the situation on the Korean peninsula to the uncontrollable and irreversible phase of the outbreak of a nuclear war.”

“The final target of the racket for military pressure on the DPRK being kicked up by the US and the puppet group of traitors is the "regime change in the north" through the "removal" of the supreme leadership of the DPRK.”

“It noted that upon authorization, the General Staff of the KPA clarified the principled stand to take a military counteraction of the Korean revolutionary armed forces: Robber-like US imperialists and the Park Geun Hye group of traitors should not forget even a moment that our revolutionary armed forces are ready to fight a decisive battle to thoroughly foil the reckless military moves for carrying out their ‘scenario for making a preemptive strike at the north.’…”

“The DPRK's access to the treasured nuclear sword is aimed to foil the adventurous nuclear war racket of the US imperialists who have ceaselessly resorted to nuclear threats and blackmail against the DPRK for the last several decades.”

“The nuclear warheads fired by the KPA as punishment will completely reduce to ashes Seoul, the center of confrontation with compatriots where Chongwadae (the South Korean Office of the President) is located and reactionary ruling machines are concentrated.”

“The US imperialist aggressor forces should face up to the reality on this land. Should they escalate the danger of military provocations by letting B-1Bs fly over the air of Korea, the KPA will sweep Guam, the base of provocations, from the surface of the earth”

“The ‘operation for eliminating the leadership of the north’ much touted by the Park Geun Hye group would only result in bringing the complete collapse of Chongwadae and reducing Seoul to debris and the US introduction of nuclear war means would put its aggressor forces' bases in the theatres of Pacific operations into a nuclear nightmare…”

Nork women voted the fat little dictator,
"Sexiest Man Alive".

This statement is a triple play reaction to the US bomber overflight; the South Korean statement about preparing for a preemptive attack on North Korea; and the South Korean statement that the South has a plan to eliminate the North Korean leadership.

The language about sweeping Guam from the surface of the earth means that the North Korean leaders now have confidence that they have a missile that can reach Guam. The tests of the Musudan/BM 25 ballistic missile in June lend credibility to the North Korean threat.

The notion that the outbreak of a nuclear war is uncontrollable and irreversible is belied by the facts of the situation, but is dangerous thinking. The mismatch is an incongruity. An incongruity occurs when a statement or situation report does not reflect the actual facts accurately. Propaganda incongruities require special attention because they tend to expose a fatalistic attitude about the threat of great harm. That makes them potential indicators of a crisis.

Various analysts put different weight over what the Norks are putting out. The Chinese are sitting on the sidelines hanging onto an unpredictable tiger by the tail. North Korea is the Chinese creature, but they don't behave themselves, and it vexes the Chinese --- but not enough to cut off the food and fuel supply to North Korea.

Barack's Banter (Syria)

When Barack takes the podium and preaches on CNN and MSNBC, he talks about how he is winning the war in Syria. He's such a pathetic fraud. I know that he's our president, but he embarrasses the US in front of the world as he tries to school everyone. He comes out looking like the emperor who had no clothes.

The Syrian Arab Army announced the start of a new military offensive in the rebel-held eastern regions of Aleppo. State media quoted the Army's headquarters in Aleppo as urging civilians in eastern parts of the city to avoid areas where "terrorists" were located and saying it had prepared exit points for those who wanted to flee, including rebels.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a spike in Russian and Syrian air attacks against eastern Aleppo. At least 14 civilians died in the attacks.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said on 22 September that Russia still honors the cessation of hostilities agreement reached with the US. Its operations are "against terrorists who are not covered by the agreement", the Russians said.

The continuation of the civil war in the north at this stage seems to depend on which side gains complete control of Aleppo. The government capture of Aleppo would effectively destroy the rebel movement in northern Syria. The Government would then only face the Turks and their proxies, the Islamic State and the Syrian Kurds and their allies.

The intensified air attacks probably are the prelude to a ground surge against limited targets that tighten the siege of eastern Aleppo.

__________

You may recall that Libertarian Party Candidate Garry Johnson had never heard of Aleppo. He needs to read this blog or hire somebody to coach him on international affairs. Maybe if he stopped eating his C. Sativa brownies for a few days he'd be clear headed enough to gather his thoughts. I'd talk about Johnson's low IQ, but -- when compared with Hillary's rampant corruption even a "low information candidate" looks pretty good.

He claimed to have stopped smoking dope at the beginning of Summer so as to be a more credible candidate. I'm not so sure that he's good to his word.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner told FoxNews.com Wednesday he knows he has a problem after his never-ending sexting scandal reached a new low with revelations he sent X-rated messages to a 15-year-old girl.

Weiner’s alleged sexting with the then-high school sophomore, who was not identified, began in January and lasted several months.

Screenshots provided by the girl clearly show Weiner’s Twitter handle responding to direct messages. At one point she notes she goes to high school and Weiner asks “Where do you go to school?” Messages on the Kik app – where Weiner allegedly used the alias “T Dog” – and on Facebook show Weiner’s face and often picture the former congressman shirtless.

Police investigated Weiner in 2011 after it emerged he was messaging a high school junior in Delaware, FoxNews.com reported. A Weiner spokesperson said the interactions with the 17-year-old girl "were neither explicit nor indecent." Anyone under the age of 18 in Delaware is considered a minor, however, Weiner was not charged with a crime at the time.

In one picture allegedly sent to the 15-year-old girl by Weiner, he's shown sitting outside with his shirt pulled up and his 4-year-old son sleeping on his stomach. The picture was eerily similar to a sext published by The New York Post in August showing the boy lying in bed with a scantily-clad Weiner.

Huma and friend

"He would tell me that he was very lonely and that it had been a year since he and his wife had sex, and that she really didn’t pay him any attention,” the girl told The Daily Mail. “We would talk, just chatting for about 30 minutes and it would lead to more sexual things…asking me to undress…he’d comment on my body. He asked me about masturbation, and that kind of thing.”

Calls from Virtual Mirage (this news blog) to Huma Weiner, wife of the former congressman and aid to presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton, were not responded to, though messages were left. "She had a chance to respond but she didn't," LL, editor-in-chief of the blog reported. "We are withholding judgment out of respect to her boss, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored to have had a(nother) seizure when the news broke.

"Other bloggers have suggested that if Huma paid as much (sexual) attention to her husband as she does to the Democratic choice, he might not be sexting teenage girls. Virtual Mirage stops short of that sort of mud slinging. It's inappropriate," LL stressed stridently. "It would be like reporting on Bill (Slick Willy) Clinton, husband of candidate Clinton, dipping his cigars into White House Intern Monica Lewinsky, in the Oval Office while he was supposed to be conducting the nation's business instead of monkey business. Journalists need to know where to draw the line."

Calls to Anthony Weiner about the possibility of him running for New York City Mayor to challenge the unpopular, law enforcement hating, Socialist Bill DiBlasio were not answered either.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

In 2016, America faces serious issues -- a rising deficit and escalating debt, the explosion of entitlements, the resurgence of Russian power, Chinese military expansionism in the South and East China seas, North Korea's development of nuclear missiles, and Afghanistan.

Now consider the issues that have transfixed the media this election season:

The birther issue, David Duke, the KKK, a Mexican-American judge, Black Lives Matter, white cops, the "Muslim ban," the Battle Flag, the "alt-right," the national anthem, Trump's refusals to recant his blasphemies against the dogmas of political correctness, or to "apologize."

Cultural Appropriation

I'm not sure what that is. I am writing in a language the Americans stole from the English (itself a bastardized Saxo-Germanic Romantic language used by ruthless Norman conquerors) using Roman letters on an machine run by electricity, whose principles were deduced by a Scott named Maxwell and a Frenchman named Ampere. How dare I? By writing or speaking, am I engaged in micro aggression?

If I drive a polyglot of vehicles, all parked in my driveway or garage (Toyota FJ Cruiser, Ford Raptor, Ducati Diavel and Honda Accord), am I somehow stealing from the Japanese, the Italians and Americans from the rust belt? And if I bought an Aston Marton DB9, would I be stealing from the British, whose language I stole - and they stole?

Somebody explain it to me.

No don't.

Trump's Record

Trump has never been accountable to an electorate. Both President Obama and former Sec. of State Clinton held elected office before running for President. The largely dishonest media and its most ardent admirer, Hillary, continually rant on Trump's record. He's been a real estate magnate, with some generally held opinions, none of which are based on the VOLUMES of detailed and classified information that Hillary and Barack have had access to.

Trump has no voting record, never Trump people. Get over it. Like him or don't like him but he has had opinions about this or that as have we all. So what? None of that has been while in office and he didn't vote for anything. The fact that his opinions changed over time (and whose haven't) vex the never Trump people to no end. Get over yourselves.

Trump is a businessman not an ideologue. Businessmen tend to be much more pragmatic than politicians – they have to be or they wouldn’t stay in business. American politicians have run up $20+ trillion in debt. Nobody in business could do that.

Cooking Shows on TV

I have tended to avoid them. Some visitors to this blog have pointed out the error in my ways since one of them (and I can't remember who - a lady with an Italian name) is nearly a porn star. In trying to fix that error I tuned into the Cooking Channel last night, but none of the dumpy chefs (male and female) were people that I'd want to see naked -- ever. But the food looked good, and I ended up eating a late night snack because of it. I don't need the calories, particularly late in the evening.

How Old is Hillary?

I am dipping into conspiracy theory here with the help of the Grunt of Monte Cristo (H/T).

Recent photos of her make he look somewhere in her 80's with general deterioration from her lifestyle and diseased body. Strokes, seizures, and so forth have plagued her.

But the advertised Hillary keep making her look as if she's in her 40's...maybe younger. Check out her ads.

At the 9/11 memorial (not long before her seizure in public) she looked like an old alcoholic, wearing the blue anti-seizure lenses.

Rebellion is a five-part original Netflix series set in Ireland in 1916 shortly before and after the "Easter Rising" wherein the Irish rebelled against the British government. The rebellion ultimately succeeded, but that's well into the future for the breadth and scope of the series. I'd like to see a second season, but there is no word of that happening as of yet.

The mini-series focuses on three women - and a family (Mahon) who were involved in the rebellion. Despite some reviews of the series that were negative, I enjoyed it and recommend it. If you're going to watch it, I suggest that you see it through all five episodes.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Everybody has an opinion - and some are based more firmly in fact. This is Larry Sabato's view of things:

I'm not betting on outcomes since Adrienne beat me in the primaries (yes, I think that I still owe her dinner - but I bought that glass cleaner that she likes on Amazon and it's not my favorite - so we may be even).

Florida is leaning for Trump, maybe it's a toss-up, and Pennsylvania is a toss-up these days as well, so I'm not sure that the map is in line with reality. The map is more of a hopeful wish for the progs and Hillary, the most openly corrupt politician in American history.

But for the FBI being co-opted, Clinton would have been indicted by now...then again, she's corrupt and has a lot of corrupt friends that want her to succeed, so how can I be surprised?

Housekeeping

As of January 1, 2017 this blog began to receive anonymous posts. I try not to delete them, but if you want to be taken seriously here, you need to identify yourself, if only by some sort of cryptonym.

Welcome to Virtual Mirage

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad," asked Alice?

"You must be," said the cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Good Morning

Virtual Mirage - What's on the other side of the mirror? Ask Alice how deep the rabbit hole really goes.

This blog is an extension of MY JOURNEY because sometimes my journey needs more explanation, and sometimes there is more to be said than can be expressed on one ordinary blog.

Sometimes it's politics (very serious), sometimes I address the human condition with a dose of humor, and other times it may seem as if the track is headed in a unique direction. I can be a complicated guy at times.

There are a few things you'll find I consider:

* Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

* Sometimes the questions are complex but the answers are simple.

* Love is the only condition where the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

* Steers do not sign treaties with meat packers. (think on that)

* Taxes are NEVER levied for the benefit of the taxed.

* The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no victory possible in defense.

WHITE POWDER (Novel)

There is something intoxicating about a secret.

THE OLD WHORE (NOVEL)

In the peculiar culture of the Central Intelligence Agency, "old whores" are people who will do whatever it takes to get the job done, irrespective of the cost.

EXILES FROM EDEN (NOVEL)

Sparks fly as two star-crossed lovers meet. He runs toward trouble as she yearns for something missing. And it ends in a flight from and toward justice.

About Me

Today, I balance work and play as much as anyone can. All things remaining equal, play is more important. Life is short - it's important to make every day count for something, if only to yourself.
I'm a former tinker/tailor/soldier/sailor who has now decided that maybe it really wasn't all done for nothing.